During my last full-time job as an executive leader, my colleagues and I were asked to stand in front of the entire company and talk about which of the organization’s corporate values resonated with us the most. Our choices: self-awareness, positive energy, judgment, intellectual honesty, and empathy. If I had been given the proper time to think about it, I might have answered differently instead of trying to make an unmemorable joke. I might have said “empathy.” Then, I might have gone on to say something like: “I’m going to say empathy because I think it’s really important. But I don’t know—because I’m not sure what we really mean when we say it. I wonder if this would be a good time for us to define what empathy means to us, and then discuss how we’re going to hold ourselves accountable to it.” Eric Solomon
